So I tried to use Apple Pay at the CVS on the corner of my block yesterday and the terminal just... didn't do anything. No beep, no green light, nothing. The cashier gave me this look like I'd tried to pay in Monopoly money and said "yeah we turned that off." Turned it off. Like it was ever on and they made a decision to shut it down mid-week.
Turns out that's exactly what happened. CVS and Rite Aid both disabled the NFC payment terminals in their stores this past weekend, only about five days after Apple Pay launched nationwide on October 20th. Same terminals that were accepting Apple Pay taps (and Google Wallet before that, for what its worth) on Monday just stopped working by Saturday. Not broken. Deliberately switched off.
The reason is this thing called CurrentC, which I'd genuinely never heard of before this week and now cant stop reading about. Its a mobile payment app being built by a retailer consortium called MCX (Merchant Customer Exchange), and the member list is basically a whos-who of big box America: Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Sunoco, CVS, Rite Aid, something like 50 retailers total. They've apparently signed agreements that lock them into using CurrentC exclusively once it launches, which is presumably why the NFC readers had to go dark, cant have your terminals quietly taking Apple Pay if your contract says CurrentC only.
Heres the thing that bugs me about this. CurrentC doesnt even use NFC. It works by having you open the app and scan a QR code at checkout, or having the cashier scan a code on your phone screen, which is such a worse experience than tap-and-go that its almost funny. Its designed that way on purpose though, it pulls funds straight from your checking account via ACH transfer instead of running through a credit card network, which means the retailers avoid interchange fees entirely. Thats the whole point. Its not about the user experience, its about Visa and Mastercard not getting their cut. Fine, I get the business logic. But dont act surprised when people find scanning a QR code at a CVS checkout line, while someone waits behind you with a basket of stuff, to be a genuinely bad experience compared to just tapping your phone on a reader for two seconds.
I've used Apple Pay maybe four times now since launch — the Whole Foods on 9th has it, the Walgreens near my office has it, and both of those have been completely painless. Rest your thumb on the home button, tap the phone near the reader, done. Faster than digging out a card most of the time. Faster than fumbling with a chip reader for sure (we're not even doing chip cards widely yet in the US, which is its own separate mess for another post). So walking into CVS and having it just refuse to work, after it worked fine there the week before, feels less like a technical hiccup and more like watching a turf war happen in real time at the pharmacy counter.
Not defending Apple unconditionally here either — the fact that Apple Pay only works with an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus right now, because those are the only ones with the NFC chip, means the vast majority of iPhone owners cant even try this yet. I'm on an iPhone 5s still (yes I know, I'm holding out for whatever comes next) so I've only gotten to test Apple Pay by borrowing my coworker's 6 Plus, which is a slightly awkward thing to ask someone at checkout.
The part I keep coming back to is that this isnt really a story about which technology is better. NFC-based tap payments are obviously nicer to use than a QR code app, at least for now. But CurrentC has fifty retailers contractually locked in, including some of the biggest chains in the country, and Apple Pay has... whichever banks and retailers Apple could get to sign on voluntarily. Those are two very different kinds of leverage. I dont think this is settled by which one is more pleasant to use at the register. Money and contracts usually win those fights, not convenience, at least in the short term.
Anyway. Went across the street to the Walgreens instead and paid for my stuff in about three seconds flat. Small victory.